Looking for a Place Called Home
by Follow Those Owls
Summary: "Spot Conlon had never been one of those newsies who ever knew a biological family, but that certainly didn't mean he didn't have one." (Spot backstory-type thing.)


**This story is truly my baby; I wrote the first draft back in June and I don't think I've ever been so shy about letting people read something I've written before. I put quite a bit of effort in; I'd love to know what you think.**

* * *

_Looking for a Place Called Home_

Spot was one of those newsies that never really knew a biological family. A lot of newsies were orphans, but they usually knew their parents at one time or another.

He had known his parents, once, long ago, but he didn't remember them.

His father had never wanted kids, not in a thousand years, he said. He loved his wife dearly, and the last thing he wanted was some loud, needy, clingy child ruining their marriage.

His mother always wanted children. Her whole life she babbled incessantly of children. People said they never saw her happier than when she was pregnant with her one and only child. The same people said they never saw her husband more sour.

Spot was born on March 31, on a day far too cold for spring. He was born too early, they said, and much too fast. His mother was too small, they said. That's why she died, they insisted.

She didn't die right away. She got to see her son, she got to hold him. He didn't look at thing like his father, which you could suppose was a good thing. He got his mother's blue-gray eyes, the ones that were the color of the wind, and her ten freckles on his nose, although he only got nine.

(They say he was born with a glare that could wilt plants. That was the one thing his father did give him.)

"Isn't he beautiful?" she'd asked her husband.

His father furrowed his eyebrows. How on earth could his wife find that squished-up, red, scowling creature beautiful? "He's...lovely," he lied unconvincingly.

She glanced at her husband, obviously annoyed and confused at how he could not have already have fallen in love with the little boy. "Patrick. Let's name him Patrick."

The words "I couldn't care less" nearly fell out of his father's mouth; he stopped himself just in time. "Wonderful."

Sixteen hours. That's how long she lived after childbirth. She lived until seven in the morning on the first of April.

Spot's father hadn't known what to do with him. How on earth was he supposed to mourn the loss of his wife with a newborn around, a newborn he didn't even really want?

Still, he knew that his wife would've doted on Patrick, would've spoiled him rotten. Of course she would've, considering he was probably the only child she'd ever get to have. So he tried to love Patrick, he really did, but he didn't have a fatherly bone in his body.

He taught his son all the things he thought the kid might need to know in cold, formal fashion. Learning to walk was practically like being in part of the military.

He despised having to bring Patrick anywhere with him; Patrick was simply adorable, and women constantly stopped to fawn over him and coo about how cute he was. His father found this to be a nuisance; Patrick loved it. It helped make up for the lack of attention he got at home.

("And so well-behaved!" the women would compliment when Patrick would politely smile and thank them. It wasn't really how Patrick wanted to act; he simply knew his father would slap him into next week if he ever threw a tantrum in public.)

His father only tried for two years. After two years, he gave up.

(Those who knew Mr. Conlon expected him to give up much sooner. Two years was more than anyone ever expected.)

He'd picked up Patrick, grabbed the one and only toy his son had ever known, one that his mother had bought before he was born, a faded stuffed rabbit, and walked out the door.

"Where?" Patrick asked, in that simple way that toddlers ask questions. He didn't understand where they were going; his father never carried him. He couldn't recall the last time his father had actually picked him up.

("You've got two legs," he'd insist. "Put 'em to good use.")

"You'll see."

His father walked for what seemed like a lifetime, and stopped in front of a wooden building with a much smaller building next to it. Both were equally shoddily made.

His father trudged to a spot in front of the smaller building and placed Patrick and his rabbit on the ground.

The toddler cocked his head. This was not normal.

To his surprise, his father turned right around and walked away.

"Father?" he asked, in the only voice he ever used - a small, quiet one. Patrick had never been allowed to refer to his parent as "dad" or "daddy"; only "father", although when he said it, it sounded like he was saying "fodder" since he was still not very good at speaking.)

His father either didn't hear him or pretended he hadn't and kept walking.

The little boy stood up, and attempted to catch up to his father, but his short legs weren't nearly fast enough and his father disappeared into a crowd of people.

And so Patrick did what any two-year-old would do: he started to cry.

This is when Trinket found him.

Patrick, being only two, couldn't read, but the wooden building had a big sign that read "Newsboys' lodging house". The smaller one his father left him in front of didn't have a sign, but the only four female newsies in Brooklyn stayed there - Trinket, Sharp, Chalk, and Fizz.

Of the four, Spot realized years later that he was probably lucky that Trinket was the first one to spot him. Trinket was a girl who loved everything she ever encountered and everyone she ever met. Her family had once owned a small shop and lived in the apartment above, but a fire had burned it to the ground when she was nine and the only reason Trinket herself escaped was because she smelled the smoke in her sleep; the rest of her family, including her parents and her little brother, who was only three, perished. Perhaps that was the reason Trinket took to Spot so well was because he reminded her of her brother.

Her name originated from what her father had always referred to their shop's wares as - "trinkets".

Sharp was named for her elbows, her wit, and her attitude. Everything she said dripped in acid. If anything, Sharp probably would've thrown a newspaper at Spot and told him to sell it.

Chalk was a ditzy girl whose nickname had no origin - no one knew why she was called Chalk; she simply was. Chalk would have had no idea what to do with him, plus, as it was later learned, she'd never been with someone under the age of six by herself in her life up to that point.

Fizz had all the exuberance and bubble that her name implied. Although she would've taken well to Spot if she'd been the first one to encounter him, she was one of the most talkative people Spot ever met and probably would've scared him by immediately jumping into conversation.

On that fateful day, Trinket had realized she'd left an all-important quarter at the lodging house on her way to buy her papes; she had quickly trekked back to retrieve it. However, she had not expected to see a crying toddler standing near the house.

In an attempt not to frighten him, she walked slowly over and quietly said, "Hello, friend," with a smile so bright it could dazzle anyone.

Patrick looked up. "Hi."

Trinket's heart melted. He spoke so quietly and so cautiously. It was precious.

"What's your name?"

Patrick smiled. "Patrick Conlon," he said carefully, enunciating each syllable. If he could say one thing absolutely perfect, it was his own name.

(He knew how to say his full name. His father always purposely asked questions he could never answer, perhaps so he could simply show off how little Patrick knew. "What is the 17th letter of the alphabet?" he'd ask, knowing Patrick didn't know. On one memorable occasion, he'd told his sister that Patrick could count to one hundred.

"Really? Isn't he only two?" she'd asked.

"Patrick!" his father called. "Come here!"

He'd slinked into the room, clutching his rabbit tightly. His father called him "Boy", not "Patrick". Not unless he was trying to impress someone.

"Yes?" he asked, although it sounded like "yed".

"Count to a hundred."

Patrick's eyes had widened. A hundred! That was practically the biggest number in the world! "N-no,

only eleven," he said, signifying that he could not count higher than eleven, which is admittedly a lot for such a little kid.

"What?" his father asked in a clipped tone.

"Count to eleven only."

"See, John? I told you. He's just a baby," his aunt said.

It didn't lessen the mocking glare his father was shooting him.

He liked saying his name because he couldn't get it wrong.)

"Well, Patrick, my name's Scarlet Jane Swenson, but they call me Trinket," Trinket said with a smile. "Now that we've been introduced, where are your parents?"

"Gone. Left."

"They left?"

"Only father. No mother."

"Your mother didn't leave?"

Patrick shook his head. "No mother."

It dawned on Trinket that he probably had never known a mother; she must've died. Shethought for a moment. There were plenty of orphans around here, that was for sure, but it didn't seem too common for someone to just leave their two-year-old alone somewhere.

Trinket picked Patrick up. "Come here. We'll talk to somebody, see if we can sort this out."

She walked through the lodging house to talk to Jervins, who ran both lodging houses. However, on her way through the boys' house, she got stopped by another newsie, Smokes.

"Is that a baby?" he said in disbelief.

"Isn't he darling?" Trinket answered.

"What the hell are you going to do with a baby?" Smokes demanded to know.

"His father just left him here! Who knows what would happen if I hadn't found him!" Trinket exclaimed, protectively clutching Patrick to her chest.

"He got a name?"

"Patrick," Patrick said quickly. He liked his name; before he died, his uncle told him that his mother had picked out his name, and that his mother had loved him very much. He liked the idea that at least one parent loved him.

Smokes leaned in closer. "Patrick ain't gonna do, kid. Around here, we'se all got nicknames. I'm Smokes, that's Trinket, that bed over there is Buck's, out by the window is Stranger, he's dating a girl called Glass from the Bronx, got it?"

Patrick didn't get why they just couldn't use their real names, but he nodded anyway.

"He can get a nickname later," Trinket said dismissively, continuing into Jervins's little office.

* * *

At first, no one took well to Patrick. "He's too little," everyone insisted.

"Couldn't that work to an advantage?" Fizz asked. "You could bring him along and he's cute so he'd sell lots of papes."

They tested it out; Trinket brought him selling one day. She usually made about two dollars on a very lucky day, but the day she brought Patrick along, she made four.

"Four?!" a newsie named Beans had asked, bewildered. "What are ya, rich?"

"They like him," Trinket answered flatly.

And so they kept him around.

"If that kid's gonna sell, he needs a nickname," Sharp said to Trinket one morning a few weeks later as they got ready for the day.

"How 'bout Spot? 'Cause he's got those freckles?" Fizz suggested.

"That's a name for a dog!" Trinket protested.

"I think it suits him," Chalk said in an absent-minded voice.

When she went out to sell for the day, Trinket asked Patrick what he thought of "Spot".

"I like," he said. Trinket grinned. It had only been a little while, but Patrick had already started speaking more and she even thought he was picking up the slightest hint of an accent.

* * *

As the years went by, Spot changed tremendously. By the time he was six, you'd never would've guessed that he was ever a quiet, anxious child.

He was loud, he had an accent so thick you'd think he was born with it, and he had a "bad attitude".

Trinket and most of the other older newsies like Sharp and Smokes had gotten new jobs when they turned twenty or so, but Trinket liked to check in on him every once in a while.

"They took him to play gin in Manhattan," Trinket said once, "And he met a boy his age who gambles! Gambles! At six! What does a six-year-old even gamble with?"

"Oh, I've seen that kid 'round. One time he and Spot teamed up and sold together. I heard they made six whole dollars! Six!" Fizz said.

"Well, at least he's selling well," Trinket mumbled, and Fizz laughed. It was if Trinket was Spot's mother.

When Spot was eleven, Trinket caught pneumonia and died. He arrived to her funeral late, stood in the back, and left early. He didn't pray, but that was more because he didn't know any prayers than because he was being rude.

Perhaps that was the day Spot truly grew up. Trinket was pretty much the only mother Spot ever knew. In a fit of rage, he punched through a stained glass window, went back to the lodging house where a sweet girl called Prayer helped him pick all the little bits of glass out of his hand, and told himself that every dies and crying doesn't accomplish a thing. Grow up.

And that's what he did.

(They say it's probably lucky that Trinket didn't see how Spot acted the next few years. )

* * *

Spot became no stranger to pain, but it didn't stop him from hating it. There really wasn't much he didn't hate.

At seven, he got his first burn from someone putting out a cigarette on his arm, and at eight he had his first cigar and promptly spit it out, causing him to get a hard smack on the head from whoever it was who had given it to him. At nine he got his worst scar, the ugly pink one that ran from his heart to his navel, the one that nearly killed him, but, as he would always tell it, "Only almost." At ten he got hit with a glass bottle during a bar fight, although God knows what a ten-year old was doing at a bar in the first place. At eleven he got nicked by a bullet, at twelve he got three black eyes in the course of one summer, at thirteen he fell off the dock and nearly drowned because he got stuck on something underwater. The list was endless.

He hated anything the left a scar or mark the most; he hated being reminded he wasn't invincible and he'd die one day. Perhaps that was why he always emphasized that the night he got the ugly pink scar, it nearly killed him, but "only almost". Perhaps he wanted to emphasize that he'd survived that and imply that he could and would survive anything.

Most of all, he hated ever being reminded that he was once the quiet, scared, and demure child from the stories the older newsies who were around when he first became a newsboy himself told. He hated ever being remotely like that - he was not Patrick anymore. Patrick Conlon ceased to exist. Only Spot remained.

* * *

Spot's childhood as a newsboy wasn't all pain. He had the typical newsboy childhood: you get up at seven, you finish selling by noon, and you spend the rest of the day having fun. He had a very best friend named Everett who went by Pockets due to his expert pick-pocketing abilities. Pockets, although he was two years older, didn't become a newsie until Spot was eight and had been selling for six years, and Spot helped him learn the ways of the newsie life. They became inseparable - in the winters they threw snow around and in the summers they swam in the river. You could see them every afternoon, dashing up and down the streets of Brooklyn.

Nights were on the other end of the spectrum. In Brooklyn, when it got dark, it really got dark. Spot recalled a night when he was fourteen when he couldn't see his hand six inches from his face. If he ever allowed himself to be scared, he would've been frightened of how much he drank every night. Spot drank more than most of the bar-goers had ever seen. At sixteen he once said in a slurred voice, "I just had three bottles of whiskey, is that the record?" Someone made the mistake of asking Spot how earth he wasn't dead; Spot promptly punched them on the face, said that he was _very_ Irish, and sat down to play poker with everyone else.

(The next morning when someone informed him of his antics the night before, a small part of him couldn't believe that he'd punched someone out for asking the absolutely logical question of how the hell he didn't die from alcohol poisoning. However, he just rolled his eyes and said whoever it was deserved it.)

Spot built quite a reputation for himself; he had a different girlfriend every week. At least half of his injuries probably came from guys who got angry with Spot for getting too cozy with their sisters. He once got a broken rib because he'd apparently broken the heart of a girl named Elizabeth. Elizabeth's brother brought along four friends and they beat Spot bloody. From the way he'd acted, you'd think it didn't hurt him in the slightest; you'd just think he was angry. This, of course, wasn't true at all.

It was wonder how he still managed to get any girls after a while; his longest relationship lasted a month, and he forgot her name three weeks later.

("Mary was real pretty, but she never shut her damn mouth," he said about his longest-lasting girlfriend. Pockets had looked at him with a puzzled expression and asked, "Wasn't her name Melanie?")

Even so, there were plenty of girls who believed it when Spot told them he loved them and they seemed to think this time would be different. It was almost funny; Spot always knew it'd be exactly the same.

* * *

Still, everyone loved Spot Conlon. Everyone respected Spot Conlon. Spot Conlon was the life of the party. In the world of newsies, Spot Conlon was king.

Maybe he abused it sometimes, maybe he was conceited sometimes, maybe he didn't appreciate his friends sometimes, and maybe he felt alone sometimes.

Even so, Spot may not have been one of the newsies who ever really knew a biological family, but that definitely didn't mean he didn't know what it was like to be part of a family. And it definitely didn't mean he didn't have one.

_El fin._

* * *

**(This was really hard to end, I rewrote the ending like fifty times, but I guess that's what happens with a story born on a school bus. It was something like 7:45 in the morning and everybody was screaming, and this is said screaming's child.)**


End file.
